Is SeaMonkey Composer any good?

MikeR371

I've been reading a 3 year old copy of Creating Web Pages for Dummies. I've signed up for a domain and host, and now I want to play around creating a webpage, just for a bit of fun. The book recommends SeaMonkey Composer as a free wysiwyg editor. Is this still a good option (for free)? Or has something better come along in the meantime?

john_s_2

I presume the book's instructions include how to use that particular package? If so then why not start off with that. Then once you're comfortable with what you're doing start looking at other packages to see if there's something else you prefer.

I run a website and use a very out of date package called Frontpage Express (used to come with Internet Explorer up to version 4). I've tried a few other packages but I just didn't get on with them. It doesn't use modern standards, CSS, etc. But... I don't care! (I'm not recommending this approach by the way! I'm a bad boy ;-)

spud17

I'm no spring chicken, but I've been teaching myself a bit of HTML and have recently come across KompoZer.

At the risk of repeating myself, I was encouraged to have a go by the 2 videos below, now I have a basic website running on an old PC in the spare bedroom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG15HHwAtwU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rKDhZJignU

tdlwebs

It really depends on how far you want to go with it. There are newer and better WYSIWYG editors but for the most satisfying and best results you can't beat learning to code HTML 'by hand'. The best free way to learn HTML, CSS or indeed any other Web technology is by far the W3Schools site.

Try http://www.w3schools.com/html/ for starters. It's really not that difficult, honest!

Vibrant

SeaMonkey Composer is still a good editor, I used it for a while on my site, before returning to my old favorite Frontpage Express (they are both quite similar).

Kompozer as previously mentioned, is also quite a good choice, although perhaps a bit complicated if you are just starting out.
Kompozer is a development of Nvu, which was developed from Composer. So if you start with Composer, you could easily upgrade to Kompozer at a later date, as the main controls are similar.

Whatever editor you decide on, avoid those that save the pages to their own special format. As it is difficult to swap to another editor.
I would also suggest use of a separate FTP program, rather than the limited ones that come with some editors.

Editors:
Frontpage Express: http://sssd.k12.ar.us/public/general.information/technology.services/downloads/
Pagebreeze: http://www.pagebreeze.com/
Kompozer: http://www.kompozer.net/
Trellian: http://www.trellian.com/webpage/index.html

FTP programs:
Core FTP lite: http://www.coreftp.com/
Whiz FTP: http://www.whizsoftware.com/
FTP Commander (I use this): http://www.internet-soft.com/ftpcomm.htm

spud17

It's really not that difficult, honest!

I must admit I worked through the above videos I linked to, then made a few adaptations.

It's definitely not a pro job, but I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to get something part way decent online.

The added bonus is, running it from home on an old P3 with 500Mb ram, I can log in/out via remote desktop from XP or ubuntu.

spud17

Kompozer as previously mentioned, is also quite a good choice, although perhaps a bit complicated if you are just starting out.

Can't really comment, but I'd written the original in HTML, then found KompoZer, which I've since used to edit it, by trial and error.

I used a copy of my page, in case of disaster, then simply replaced the one on the server, over my home network.

MikeR371

Great stuff! I'll give some of these a go. Thanks all.